What’s the fun of an event if you don’t get to bring along a plus-one? What’s the point of being involved with a vital and forward-thinking artistic community if you don’t get to invite your colleagues, mentors, and creative crushes to the party?

Brooklyn’s Invisible Dog Art Center was conceived from the first as a new kind of art center: an unconventional community of artists working in all media and at all career stages, brought together by a mutual commitment to collaboration and collectivity. As such, the artists’ studios are integral to the project: for the 27 artists housed there, the Invisible Dog is literally home. They are the heart of the Invisible Dog, according to director Lucien Zayan, who wanted to honor their commitment to the unique spirit of the space in a way consonant with the center’s ideals.

The exhibition is generously supported byNamkwang Construction

To that end, Invisible Dog is proud to unveil its new curation series, PLUS-ONE CURATION, which challenges artists to stretch their visions of their roles as creators. Beginning this spring, and running biannually in spring and fall, PLUS-ONE CURATION asks interested artists working in the Invisible Dog studios to curate a gallery show. Working with the director, artists will develop shows that in some way respond to their experience at the Invisible Dog. But beyond that loose perimeter, the artist-curators are free to let their imaginations take the lead.

PLUS-ONE CURATION models a new kind of artist involvement in the gallery process. Where artists are too often encouraged to cultivate narrowness, PLUS-ONE CURATION asks them to pause and reflect on the contemporary art scene at large. Placing themselves on the other side of the artistic equation, the PLUS-ONE artist-curator must look at art with a different kind of attention, maintaining his or her unique vision while expanding notions of what should get shown and how.

The first installment of PLUS-ONE CURATION opens May 22nd, with Kiya Kim’s “If You See Nothing, Say Something,” which inverts the New York subway slogan to explore the wonder of the everyday discovery. The fall show, Gabriel Yozzo’s “Pseudonym Project,” playfully interrupts the branding mechanism of contemporary culture: every artist included will chose a pseudonym instead of using his or her name.